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Ethical Pessimism in BergsonAuthor(s): J. W. ScottSource: International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Jan., 1914), pp. 147-167Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2376504 .

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ETHICAL

PESSIMISM

IN

BERGSON.

147

well

as other

forms

of

life;

but

a

theory

of

evolution

that

is to

explain

organic and

human life

will

need

to

be,much more comprehensivethan the one with which

we

are

familiar

at present;

and for those

who

believe

that

evolution

must be

read

backwards

as well

as

for-

wards, the

importance

of a study

of

history

or

the

evo-

lution

of

human affairs

as a

means

of contributing

o

thatmore

comprehensive

heory,

s not likely

to be

chal-

lenged.

G. C.

HENDERSON.

THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

ADELAIDE.

ETHICAL PESSIMISM

IN BERGSON.

J.

W.

SCOTT.

fHE ethical pessimismreferred

to

in

the

title

of

this

paper is primarily

n impressionwhich arises in the

mind after reading one

of M. Bergson's early

works,

the

essay

on

laughter.

The aim of the discussion

is

to

point out the impression,

and to raise the question

whetherthereis any reason for

it

in

the

account

of the

comic,from which it arises.

An essay on laughter hardly seems an appropriate

place

in

which to practise ethical diagnosis. And

it al-

most savors of banality

to begin to ask of this particu-

lar

essay what sort

of moral spirit animates it.

The

only spirit that

is in

it,

in a sense, is that of the artist;

or

of the great author

who chances upon an innocent,

little noticed psychic phenomenonwhich he can proceed

to

dissect and anatomize

for the behoof solely

of such

as

delight

n

such things.

Bergson has no didactic pur-

pose

to

serve

in

this

book; nor has he any taste

for coarse

effects. He administers

no moral shock to his reader.

He

upsets

no

prejudices.

He has no interest,

n

fact, but

to cut

open the thing

he is handling and let light

in.

His central question is the simple one, what is it thatwe








148 INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL

OF ETHICS.

laugh at when

we laugh?

And he proceeds

to examine

specimens

and see.

And if in the process

of examina-

tion,his analytic scalpel occasionally passes uncomfort-

ably

close

to somethingmorally

vital,-well,

we hardly

notice

it, or

we forget; it is

all so

naturally

done, and

with so

deft

a touch.

Yet the

book leaves

an idea

in

our minds, an

edged

idea, so to call

it, which

penetrates

right

into life's

moral center

and leaves

an impression

there. It

is

impossible,

of course,

to put

the central

idea of Bergson's essay in a word. But put in as ade-

quate

a single phrase

as one

can borrow

from the work

itself,

the idea

is that the comical

in

human

life is the

'unadaptable,,'

and the 'unadaptable'

is the 'rigid.'

To

expand

it a little:

wherever

there appears

in human

life

the 'inflexible' spirit;

the

type

of man who,

in

the

midstof an environment

which

nviteshim to

adapt

him-

self to it, does not do so, but pursues his own course,

deaf

to its calls;

the

man who thus presents

a

fixedfront

to

life

and has not

the necessary

'suppleness'

or

'elas-

ticity' to yield

gracefully

o its

infinitely

ubtle and

vary-

ing

demands; such

a character

has

always something

comical about

him.

It

requires

all

Bergson's

develop-

ment

of this

idea to exhibit

to

the

full

its power

and

its

prima faceeconvincingness. But so developed, its plau-

sibilitywins

upon the

mind, as it is dwelt

upon.

For the

comical side

of

the

man

who

stops

his

ears

when

he has

set

his

course,-whether

it

be

Don

Quixote

tilting

at his

windmills

or any other

equally

unpracticaltype

of ideal-

ist,-becomes

more and

more easy to

see once

we con-

sent

to look for it.

And

seeing

that

this

resolute

type

of character,with all his limitations,gives tone to so

much

of

what

is

best

in

life,

we end

with

a

sense

of

dis-

illusion; with

the

impression,

o put it

frankly,

hat

life

itself

is

more

of a comedy

than we

had

quite

thought.

Of

course,

the

discovery

that there

is

more

of

comedy

in

life's

'earnest'

than

most serious

people

suspect,

is

one

which otherworks

than

Bergson's

have enabled

men

to

make.

But

the point

is that

in

Bergson's

case

the







ETHICAL

PESSIMISM

IN

BERGSON.

149

discovery

comes

as

a

disillusion.

The reason,

if we

may

anticipate

so far

as to say so,

is that with

him the

comic

is only comical. The idea of comedydoes not emerge

from

his

hands

dignified,

s

it

did,

for example,

from

Meredith.

This

is because,

beginning

his

investigation

at the

lower

limit, so

to

speak,

of

the comic,

he

leaves

the

impression

of

having

resolved

the comic

as

a

whole

into

its lowest

terms.

Hence,

in showinghow

far

the

comic

penetrates

life,

he seems

but

to show how

much

of life is ridiculous. And so much of it is so, that the

whole loses

in

ultimate

value.

Laughter

seems

to

have

impregnated

ife

with a

tinge

of

genuine

pessimism.

Such

is

the impression.

The

only

way

to

test

the

jus-

tice

of it is to

ask

what

conception

of

the

good

life

un-

derlies the view

of

the comic

here presented

to us.

That

some

moral

view

is

implicated

n

the

theory

s

acknowl-

edged by the author. It appears in the anti-social ten-

dency

which

s said

to

characterize

all laughable

conduct.

The

life

of

human society

on

the

author's

view

requires

of

its

members

a certain

'tension,'

an

alertness

of

re-

sponse

to

very

varied stimuli.

A

certain

degree

of

this

alertness

is necessary

to

the

human

individual

if

he

is

even

to live. But after

it has been sufficiently

reated

in him to ensure his survival, it is expedient that the

power

should

be

kept

alive

in

him by

further

nd more

delicate

exercise,

by

adaptations

to

conditions

not

ex-

actly essential

to existence.

It

is

by

these

further

ad-

justments

that

society

refines

tself

and

attains

to

its

best

life. Now society's

instrument

for

securing

from

the

individual

adaptation

to

these

social

conventions,

manners and

subtler

conditions

of

'good'

life

generally,

is laughter.

Laughter

is thus

a socializing instrument.

It is

always,

as Bergson

points

out,

the laughter

of

a

group.

It

is,

at bottom,

group

of

human beings

laugh-

ing

at

one of

their

number

who

has

fallen

short

of some

adaptation

which

was expected

of him,-a

"formof

social

castigation,

perhaps

the gentlest

way

which

nature

anywhere

adopts

of

eliminating

the

unfit. This

gives








150

INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL

OF ETHICS.

the

analysis

of laughter

at

once

a moral

interest.

In

marking

out what

society

does

not want,

laughter

shows

by implicationwhat it does want. It sketchessociety's

ideal.

Our

question

here

is, what

sort of

ideal

is thus

sketched,

nd whether

t be

not

one to attain

which

some

of life

s absolutely

valuable

aspects

have to

be

sacrificed.

One

fundamental

and doubtless

sound

assumption

of

the treatise

s

that t

is really

societywhich

aughs.

And

if we are

to

find n this

fact

an

accountof

society's

ideal,

we must determinetwo furtherpoints,what exactly it

laughs

at and why.

To

the

formerquestion,

which is

the

important

one, Bergson's

answer

is that society

laughs

at the

'mechanical"

in life

and

conduct,

at

that

in

life

which

is fixedor rigid

when

it should

have

been

supple,

subtle,

sinuous.

Our

view

is

that

Bergson,

in

saying

so,

indicates quite

rightly

he

general

direction

n

whichwe must ook forthecomic; but withoutdescribing

very accurately

what

is found

there.

That the

general

locus of

the

comic

is to be

found,

n

some

sense,

in

the

'mechanical''

appears

from

the

wide

and

ready

applicability

which

Bergson

can show

this

formula

to have. When

a

man

rushing

along

the

street,

for

instance,

is suddenly

brought to

a stop

by falling

over a stick,the 'laughable aspect' of the situation (if

it

has one)

is said

to

be that a

human

being should

have

thus

gone

straight

forward like

an automaton

when he

might

have

gracefully

threaded

his way amongst

the ob-

stacles.

And it

does

indeed quite

seem

so. Moreover,

it

is

the same

failure to

negotiate

the obstacle

which

makes

a man

comical who dips

his

pen

into

an

empty

inkwellor sits down on a bottomlesschair or otherwise

falls into the traps

of

the practical

joker.

He

does

not

see

what

is

awaiting

him;

and

instead

of

adapting

him-

self

to

the

circumstances

he

goes

straight

on,

as he

has

been

in

the

habit

of

doing.

Again,

what else

is the

ab-

sent-minded

erson,-that

veritable

fountain

of

comedy,

-than one

chronically

unable to

change

his

path

from

its habitual direction nd bend it as requiredbytheworld








ETHICAL

PESSIMISM

IN

BERGSON.

151

about

him , Even that

highlyrefined

omic

character

the

dreamer,-the

Don

Quixote,-answers

the same

descrip-

tion. Here we not only see the actual world to which

the absent-minded

person

should

be

adapting

himself;

we also see the

unreal world

itself,

to

which

his absent

mind

is present.

We even

see

that fanciful

world

in the

making,

and thus

understand

how the

day-dreamer

olors

and distorts the

realities

he meets.

We know

what

Don

Quixote

thinks

his windmills

are,

and see

the logic

of

it.

The laughable always implies this fundamentalabsent-

mindedness.

The

comical person

is one

who lets

him-

self

be

moved by

the

momentum

of his

own

habit of

mind

instead of

actively

responding

to the calls

of

his

present

environment.

In

this sense,

the

comical

is the

'mechanical.'

And

society

laughs

at it

because

society

wants its members not to

be automata,

but

to

adapt

themselvesfinely o the circumstancesaround them.

But

is the thing

at which

society

laughs

properly

the

mechanical?

If

that termmust

be used,

we

hold,

at

least,

that

there

is something

n this

sort of mechanism

which

Bergson's treatment

of

it tends to

obscure.

When

he

is treatingthe

lower

forms

of the comic,-a

comical

face

or

gesture,

for

instance,-he

is,

of

course,

seeking

to

ex-

press the spiritbehind the aughter,the subtlemovement

of

imagination

which

provokes

it. When

he

likens

the

object

to

a

mechanism,

t

is

for

imagination

that the

'mechanism'

exists.

And the

feature

of all such

objects

which

he

neglects

is

to

be

found only by approaching

them

in

the light

of his

own interpretations.

What construction,

hen,

does Bergson put

upon

the

object of the imaginationin those simpler examples of

the ludicrous?

Taking

the instance

of

such

physical

de-

formities

s

are

laughable,

he points

out,

first,

hat they

are seen

as human.

A

comical

deformity

s

"one which

a

normally

built person

could

successfully

mitate.

But

this

is not

his

only

or his

main characterization.

Such

a

deformity

s

also one

which can appear

as

though

it

were somethingfixed upon the possessor, a fixed habit








152

INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL

OF

ETHICS.

contracted

by

him,

and

perpetuating

tself.

A

hunchback

at

whom

we

laugh

is

one

who

appears

to

have

become

puckeredup, so to speak, permanently. "By a kind of

physical

obstinacy,

by

rigidity,

n

a word,

his

back

per-

sists

in the habit

it

has contracted."'

A

comical

physi-

ognomy

s

a

face

screwed

up,

as

it were,

and

staying

so;

something

fixed

and

mechanical

'encrusted

upon

the

native

mobility

of

life.

We are

said to

laugh,

then,

at a

kind of

fixity.

On

closer analysis,however, his nterpretationeemsclearly

to point

beyond

tself.

Confronted

y

thefact

thatthere

is

at least

one

familiar

type

of fixity

t which

we do

not

laugh,

namely,

the

set

in

the

countenance

of

a man

of

character

or

refinement,

ergson

points

out

that

this

countenance

s

implicitly

mobile.

"It

maintains

in

the

midst

of

its

fixity

certain

indecision

in which

are

ob-

scurely portrayed all possible shades of the state of

mind" within.

But

what

is this

mobility

It is

plainly

not

actual

changes

of

expression,

for

we

see

it

when

the

face

is

still.

It must

consist,

then,

n

suggested

changes.

Other

expressions,

variations

ofthe

one

before

us,

gather

round

this

one,

as it were,

making

what

Professor

James

would

call

its

'fringe';

and scatter

in it their

various

lightsand shadows. Nor do we seem to err in interpret-

ing it

so.

For

all

such

centralizing

of

variations

around

their

type

is indeed activity;

it is the tension

of a prin-

ciple

sustaining

itself

amidst

its

expressions.

And

we

cannot,

n the

long run,

find

mobility

o

be

anything

lse.

But

if

so,

the

phenomenon

s

strangely

ubiquitous.

It

invades

the

comical

form

too. Why

should

not

the

gri-

mace exercise the same tensionover a peripheryof vari-

ations

which shade

offfrom

t? True,

as

a

face

it is

not

really

typical.

It is

an

extreme,

a

marginal

variety

of

its class.

But

it is

not, therefore,

abandoned by

its

class,-alone,

and

so dead.

It is

still

a

face.

The

same

delicate

imagination

which

saw

the

infinite

varieties

shadowed

in the face

of

character

and

thus saw it

mobile,

sees

some

variations

assembled

around this

one

too,







ETHICAL PESSIMISM IN BERGSON. 153

shading off from it in coarser degrees. Which

means

that this face too is active, by suggestion.

And, surely, t is indeed in its activitythat the comic

spirit luxuriates. When we laugh

at a distorted

face,

we

do

not surely laugh at the twist,

s

a

thingby itself,

fixed

and

laid on the mobilityof life.

We laugh at the

man screwingup his face. When we laugh

at a crumpled

back, t is truly t

"

somethingwhich

normallybuilt per-

son could

successfully mitate.

'

But

this means that we

laugh at the man crumplinghis back, not at the hump,

as a dead thing attached to his living body and hinder-

ing it. What is comical is not a rigidity ncrustedupon

life, then. It is a movementof life itself.

To take one more example. The mechanically re-

peated gestures

of a

speaker may become comical. The

reason alleged by Bergson for this is that they give the

man the appearance of being a mere moving apparatus.

Mere gesture, t is explained, is too

indelicate to convey

a

complex meaning. Only the resources

of a competent

vocabulary suffice or that. Yet gesture

tries it; and

this mechanism simulating life

is

the

laughable thing.

To

quote Bergson's

words:

"Gesture

here

vies with

speech.

Jealous

of

the

latter, gesture closely dogs

the

speaker's steps, it, too, offering o act as interpreter....

Well and

good;

but then it

must

pledge

itself

to

follow

thought hrough

ll

phases

of

its

development.

An

idea

is something hat grows, buds, blossoms

and ripens

from

beginning

to

end

of

a speech.

It

never repeats

itself.

.

. . Then let

gesture adopt the

fundamental aw of

life,

which s

a

complete absence

of

repetition.

But

one

finds

that a certain movement, perhaps of head or arm, a

movement

always

the

same,

seems

to return

at

regular

intervals. . . This is no longer life.

It is automatism

establishing

itself

in

life,

and

imitating

t.

It

belongs

to

the

comic.."' But

surely gestures

convey something.

Those

of

the histrionic rtist

do.

Those

of

a

competent

speaker

also do.

What gestures

do, or attempt,

s

to

block out certain situationswhichthewords are describ-








154

INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL

OF ETHICS.

ing, n

a crude

and rough

outline.

They sketch

he

frame-

work,

so to

speak,

within

which

the

verbal

representa-

tion falls. So far as they are effective, hey bind the

representation

ogether,

hey keep

it

in hand,

and

so do

not merely

mark

time

mechanically

behind

the

move-

ments of

life,

but live

themselves.

And

to however

low

an ebb the

life

of gesture

may fall,

it never

goes quite

out.

Reduce

it

to nothing

but

a

mechanical

swaying

of

the

body

or swinging

of awkward

arms;

it

is yet ex-

pressive. The speaker is in point of fact workingat a

task,

and

it

is

the task

which

he

started.

His

'idea' may

have blossomed

under

his

treatment

or

become.

muti-

lated;

it

is

still

in

some

sense

the same

idea. He en-

tered upon

his

present

theme,

t

any

rate;

or at

the

very

least,

began

this

present

speech.

And the

sustained

repetitions

of

a 'movement

always the

same'

are simply

his way of makingvisible,despite any possible contrary

appearances,

the

fact that he

is

still

at

it. The

move-

ments express

a unity and a

unity which

s

there.

It is

not the

mechanical

swing of

the

arms

that is

amusing.

We

could

get

that from

the

pendulum

of

a clock. It

is

the

man laboriously

doing

it.

The

laughable

is

a

certain

movement

of the

living

man

himself,

s contrasted

with

a mechanicalmovementattached to him and hindering

him. In a

word,

we

laugh

at

him,

and

not at

his

arms.

As a

representation

of

the

comic, then,

Bergson's

ac-

count

obscures

something.

Not the

simple

fact that

the

human

aspect

is

present,

but

the fact

that it

predomi-

nates,-that

it

is the source

of

the effect.

That

it is the

human aspect

which

does

predominate,

however,

should

become conclusivelyclear from the simple fact that it

comes

more

and

more

into

prominence

as comic

effect

heightens,-that

is,

as we

rise

in

the

scale

from

cruder

comedy

to

higher.

If

life

were

really

comical

in so

far

as

it

reminded

us of mechanism,

t

ought

to become

the

more

comical the

better

it

presented

mechanism

to

us.

Now

in

a

certain

sense

of

'more,'

and

up

to

a

certain

point,this

is true.

Bergson,

for

instance,

describes

one







ETHICAL

PESSIMISM IN

BERGSON.

155

form

of

theatrical or

pantomimic

ntertainment

o

which

he

seems to

attach

importance s

an

example of

the

prin-

ciple of the comic, n whichthe effect s obtained by at-

taining

to an

appearance

of

mechanism

gradually.

The

troop

of

performers

on

the

stage are

increased

in num-

ber

from

moment

o

moment, nd

their

movements

imul-

taneously

ncreased

in

rapidity

and

in

degree

of

likeness

to

mechanical

things

until,

n

the

climax,

the

human

per-

formers

almost

become

mechanical

objects,

rolling

balls,

jointed puppets, and so forth. Here the laughterdoes

presumably

grow

louder

as the

mechanical

is

more

ap-

proached. And

no

doubt

there

is a

sense in

which

the

fact

indicates

that

the

comic

effect

s

being

heightened.

But

it

is

not

being made

higher

comedy,

certainly;

and

even as a

device,

as

a means

of

causing vociferous

augh-

ter,

there is

a plain

limit to

its

success,-the

point,

namely, when the simulation is so well done that the

performers

simply

become

mechanical

objects

and

so

cease

to

appeal to

the

jaded

eye as

any

more

comical

than

actual

balls and

staves

themselves

would be.

If

the

comic

effect s to

survive even on

this

level,

not

only

must

the

human

side

remain

present.

It must

enwrap,

and

visibly

enwrap, the

other

side

in

it.

These

living

beings must be imposingmechanism on themselves,not

sufferingfrom it.

And

if

the

effect,

n

any spiritual

sense

of

the

word,

s

to

heighten,

he

human factor

must

come

more

and

more

to

the

front. It

would

not

be

by

becoming

more

mechanical

that

a

common fool would

become a

Jaques

or

a

Falstaff, but

by

becoming less

mechanical

and

more

vastly human.

When Bergson himself s askinghow advance is made

from

those

simple

comic

effects

which

provide

him

with

the

clue

to

the

nature

of

the comic

in

general,

toward

higher

effects,his

language

betrays a

consciousness

of

the fact

that

it

is

the human

which

must

come out.

The

forms

n

which

he

puts

the

question

seem

to

imply

that

it

is a

question

precisely

of

how

the

'mechanical'

char-

acter becomes submerged. The comic element in the








156 INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL

OF ETHICS.

lower forms

s described

as

'accidental.'

When

the

run-

ner trips,

the fall

is

brought about

by

an 'external

cir-

cumstance.' And the question raised is how the comic

may

cease

to

be thus 'in

superficial

contact'

with

the

person;

how it

may penetrate

within.'

Implying,

ppar-

ently,

that the

higher comic

is

more inward, more

per-

sonal. And surely

it is by becoming

thus

more

human

and lifelike

that a comic

character

approaches

greatness.

The fact upon

which

we

have so far

insisted

is

that

even in the cruderforms of the comic, and increasingly

as

we

ascend toward

the higher

levels of comedy,

t is

of the essence

of

the

comical to express life

itself

rather

than

a

hindranceof life

by

something

different

n

prin-

ciple

from

it. The importance

of the

fact lies

in

this:

that

while

the comical

is always a.

behavior

of

this sort

on the part of

life,

not all behavior

of

this

sort on the

part of a livingbeing appears to be comical. Whatever

other distinguishable

worlds

of human

experience

may

be

characterized

by the principle

here

found at the

root

of

the comic,

the

world of morality

does appear

to be

so characterized.

If

life

were

deprived

of

the liberty

of

imposing

this 'mechanical'

form

upon

its

activity,

t

would indeed

cease

to

be comical.

But

there

would

dis-

appear from t also the major portionof what we com-

monlycall

its

moral

function.

There

is no need to

go

into detail

to establish

the

gen-

eral

affinity

etween

the comical

as described

by

Berg-

son and the

moral as we

know

t. It

is

the

source of

the

impression

mentioned

t

the beginning

of the paper,

and

it

lies

on the

surface of

all

Bergson's

prominent

ex-

amples. It is comical to act according to fixedhabit;

but

in

all

that is moral

there

is an

aspect

of

habit.

It

is

comical

to be like

another

mind;

but, very

man

who

takes another

mind as

an

example

to follow is

so

far

like

him.

It is

comical

fo

repeat

and

insist;

but

moral

practice

is

the

sustained

insistenceand repetition,

n

sea-

son

and

out

of

season,

of

principles

which

are

universal

and depend for their validity on neitherplace nor cir-








ETHICAL

PESSIMISM

IN BERGSON.

157

cumstance.

It is comical

for a

man

having

set

his course

to

rush straight

for

his objective, roughriding

circum-

stance and deaf to the calls of the world; but that is

also

moral;

it

is

whatthe

runner

does

who bumps

against

an

obstacle,

but

it

is also

what

Bunyan's

"Christian"

does

fleeing

from

the

city of destruction.

The

highest

reach

of

the

comical

is an absentmindedness

of

charac-

ter;

the

presence

of the

mind

to

another

world

than

the

present

one;

an

attempt

to

shape

surroundings

n

ac-

cordance with that world, instead of making it accord

with them;

a

yielding

of

obedience

to the mpulse

of

one's

own

fixed

nd

formed

character

and

will instead

of

bend-

ing

these

to

the

ways

of

the

world.

But

that is

an

accu-

rate

description

of

how a

man

dies

for

a

cause.

In

fact,

the

comic

and

the

moral

spirit

lie

so close

to

each

other

that

the appearance

of affinity

an

hardly

escape notice. And Bergson has not left it unnoticed.

He

has

discussed

how

far

it is

real,-the

conditions

un-

der

which

the

moral can

become

comical,

and

the

vicious,

too,

become

comical,

and

what

distinguishes

both

from

the

comic.

He

does

distinguish

them,

and

his

distinc-

tion turns

on

his fundamental

ccount

of the

difference

between

the

comic and

the

serious.

Of

this

distinction

he really gives two accounts closely dependenton each

other.

His more

immediate

but less

satisfactory

way

of

dis-

tinguishing

the

comic

and

the

serious

lies

open

to

all

readers

in the

firstpages

of the essay.

One

of the

most

conspicuous

features

of

laughter

is

said

to be

the

calm

indifference

nd absence

of feeling

which

accompanies

it.

"

Try

for

a moment

to

become

interested

in

everything

that

is being

said

and done;

act,

in

imagination,

with

those

who

act,

and

feel

with

those

who feel;

in

a

word, give your

sympathy

ts widest expansion;

as

though

at

the touch

of

a

fairy wand

you

will

see

the

flimsiest of objects

assume

importance,

and

a

gloomy

hue pass

over everything.

Now step

aside,

look upon

life

as

a

disinterested

pectator;

many

a drama

will

turn

into comedy.

It is enough

for

us to stop

our

ears to

the

music

in a

room

where

dancing

is

going

on,

for

the dancers

at

once

to

appear

ridiculous.

How many human actions would stand a similar test? Should we not see

Vol.

XXIV.-No.

2.

11



158

INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL OF

ETHICS.

many

of them

turn suddenly from

grave to gay, on

isolating them from

the accompanying

music of

sentiment?

To produce the whole of

its

effect,

then, the comic demands something like a momentaryanesthesia of the

heart. Its appeal

is to

intelligence pure

and simple."

1

The

distinctionbetween the

comical

and the

moral is

easily inferred.

Nothing s comical

which appeals

to our

feelings;

and

it

is part

of the

comic poet's

function o

contrive to

effect

deadening

of sentiment nd

emotion

in

the

spectator. "There is

an art of

lulling

sensibility

to sleep,-providing it with dreams as happens in the

case of

a

mesmerized

person.

And

there is also an art

of

throwing wet

blanket over

sympathy t thevery mo-

ment it

might arise,

the result being

that the

situation,

though

a

serious

one,

is

not taken

seriously.

2

But the

moral

appeals to

feeling and thus cannot

be

comic: we

have

shut

our

eyes to

the

moral

before we open them

on the comic.

We

have

here one of the

ways

in

which

Bergson

effects

the

distinction.

We

have called

it

unsatisfactory ecause

it

borders so

closely on

tautology.

What does it mean

to

say

that a

situation is comical

only

when

seen

with-

out sentiment,

xcept

simply

that

it cannot

be comical

if

it

is

taken

seriously? The

fact

is,

in

order

to

reach

Bergson 7struedistinction,we must ook past these state-

ments

to

the context

from

which we

have taken them.

We

must

see

how this

art

of

lulling sensibility

asleep

sets

to

work,

and see what

exactly

it

reveals.

All

along

we have been

trying

to

interpret

he

comic

imagination,

that

is,

to

see

how

the

world

looks

to

it.

And

we cannot

fall

back on

the statement that

the

comic

spirit

is

un-

emotional and unsympatheticunless we can translate

these

terms into a

description

of the

object

seen. We

know

that

an

object

looks

differently

when looked

at

sentimentally

rom

what

it

appears

when looked

at

from

an

indifferent

tandpoint.

But

the

question

is

in

what

do

the

two

differT

I"Laughter," pp. 4, 5. '"Laughter," p. 140.








ETHICAL PESSIMISM IN BERGSON. 159

When

Bergson

comes

to

round

up

his

conclusionsnto

a comprehensiveicture f the comicworld,-the

world

as it appears to comic magination,-he ointsout three

fundamentaleatures f it which re the reverseof the

three undamentaleatures f ife. Normally,ife should

neverturnbackwards, ever repeat tselfand neveral-

low any of its elements o become transposable, . e.,

capable of occupyingny otherplace or context han he

one theyoccupy. But whenwe find n comedy char-

acter like Orgon n Moliere's"Tartuffe,"for nstance,

unable to listento important ews,without reaking n

upon the speaker t every ause of theconversation ith

questionsregarding he one trivial ubject of whichhis

own mind s

full,we perceive travesty f the aws

of

life; a piece of ivinghuman ntercourse,r what should

have been such,broken nto every now and then by a

mechanicalrepetition. Similarly, ife may find tself

thwarted

long

the others

f its

lines of

action.

A

man

may be caught

n

his own trap,

or

a particular ct

or

word of

some one may be placed by

a

listener

nto

a

wholly ifferentontext rom hat

to

which t reallybe-

longs. Whenever ife s made thusto repeat tself, urn

back

upon itself,

r submit o

mechanical

isintegration

so that tspartsmaybedetached romtandtransposed,

it

becomes omical.

But

we can make nothing f this as

a

picture ppli-

cable to

theworld

of

comedydistinctively,

ithout

he

empty roviso

hat

this

picture

f

invertedife

must

not

touch our

feelings. Surely

there

s a

tragic repetition

of

words.

Othello

s

exclamation,

the handkerchief,"

breaks n upon Tago's conversationxactly s the "Et

Tartuffe?

of

Orgon

does

upon

the conversation

f the

serving

maid.

The

turning

ack

movement,-the

heme

of

the robberrobbed

nd

the

biter

bit,-is surelypos-

sible

n

tragedy

oo.

And

to

say

thatthe

same element

could

not

be transposed, nd

enter

qually

well nto

two

contexts

r

'series

except

n

comedy,

would be to

say

that n tragedy herewereno misunderstandings.We








160

INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL

OF

ETHICS.

cannot

get at

Bergson's

real conception

until we

come

to

close

quarters

with

the

manner

n

which

the comic

poet

is supposed to prune our sympathiesand regulate them

to

the

due pitch.

How,

then,

do

our sympathies

become

alienated,

our

feelings

atrophied

to the

degree

required

for comic

per-

ception?

The poet

follows

two

main

methods;

he

pre-

sents

us

with a

person

within

whose soul

the

various

ele-

ments

of

character

are

isolated;

secondly,

he

allows

the

person to gesticulateratherthan to act. It is onlywhen

we examine the

change

which comes

over the

picture

of

the world

when these

operations

are

performed

on

it,

that we get

the

distinctionwe

are seeking.

And if we

look closely

into

it,

we

shall

find

that the

real

effect

of

these

things

s

to substitute

abrupt

transitions

for

what

are supposed

to

be

life's fine

gradations.

A miserwhose avarice can be feltspreadingitself nch

by

inch across

his

soul,

until it

has interlocked

tself

with

every

human interest

the

man

has,

and

entwined

itself

into

every

thread

and

fiber of

his being,

could

never

be comical.

It spreads

in such

a

way

that every

successive

advance

is

graded

into the

next,

and

as we

watch the

whole

growing

to

its

own

inward

music,

the

emotionrises. But if a vice remains something etached,

subsisting

along

with

other

nterests

n the soul, jostling

them

but not uniting

with

them,

so

that its manifesta-

tions are abrupt explosions

and do

not

develop

them-

selves

or

advance upon

one

another

in

fine

grades,

then

it may

be

comical.

It

will then

possess

the

man

partly

and

intermittently,

ot

wholly

or

permanently.

Thus

such scenes are possible as the surprisemeetingof Har-

pagon

and

his

son

in

Moliere's

"1'FAvare,

where

the

father

is distracted

between

love

of his son

and

of

his

purse,

the

two

sentiments

taking

possession

of

him

by

turns,

keeping

him

acting

now

in the one character

and

now

in

the

other.

"Here

we

should be

in

the

thick of

drama,"

says Bergson,

"if

only

greed

and

fatherly

f-

fection,conflictingwith each other in the soul of Har-










162

INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL

OF

ETHICS.

really

the

same

end

in

view

as

Othello's

repetition

of

his.

It

only

reaches

its

end

by a

sacrifice, f

means,-

of intermediatesteps,-unknown in the

other.

In

both

cases

the

end is

to

make the

repeated

thoughts

promi-

nent,-or

better,

central.

They are

both

efforts

o cen-

tralize.

Othello's

mind

is

transfixed

y the

idea

of Des-

demona's

guilt.

He

has

to

listen

to

a

whole

deluge of

suggestions

meant

to

explain it

away,

but

really

power-

less

to

do

so;

and by

repeating

the

words

'the

handker-

chief' he is forever roping in the scatteringattention,

forcing t

back,

as

it

were,

to

the

one

centrally

nterest-

ing

point.

And

that

centralization is

precisely

what

Orgon

is

practising

n

the

scene with

Dorine.

Only, the

sacrificeof

fineness

of

graded

intermediate

step is

in

his

case

inevitable.

Because

the

point

around

which

he

would

centralize

everything

s not

really

central. He

does not behave like the character he is supposed to

be,-the head

of

a

house

returning

home

after

an ab-

sence and

receiving

news of

his

household.

Instead

of

beginningwith

first

hings

first,

nd

overtaking

he other

items

of

news as

they

shaded

off from

t

in

an

approxi-

mately

true

order

of

importance,

e

must

spring

straight-

way

to

the one

trivial

matter

which

happens

to

be inter-

esting him. He must behave as though the one impu-

dent

being

whom

his roof

shelters

were the

only

person

of

consequence

there, and

speak

of

him and

pity him,

and

when

told that

the

wife

of

his

bosom is

gravely

ill,

fail

to

hear.

Tartuffe,

of

course,

existed;

and

lived

amongst

the

others.

And

there doubtless was

a

grace-

ful

way

of

reaching

him,

had

Orgon

overtaken

first

the

matters which naturally lay between. But he makes

straight

to

his

point.

He

lays

rough

hands on the

at-

tention

which s

occupied

in

a natural

way

with

thewhole

subject-matter of

the

household and

its

affairs,

and

wrests

it,

so

to

speak,

at a

leap

to

the

very

outmost

boundary

of

its

picture.

Here,

then,

we

have the net

meaning

of

Bergson's

proviso that the comically inverted life, if it is to be








ETHICAL

PESSIMISM

IN

BERGSON.

163

comical,

shall

be

perceived

without

emotion.'

It

means

that

abrupt

transitions

take

the

place of

sinuous

glid-

ing movementsof the soul. It means that in thatmove-

ment

which

s

life,

the

end

is

seen

and

reached

straight

from

the

immediate,

without

the

possible

intermediate

steps

being

delicately

perceived

and

considered

and

made

the

means. It

means,

if

we

may

venture

to

put

it

in

the

language

of

Bergson's

general

philosophy,

that

the

juxtaposition

of

things

in

space

is

substituted

for

the interpenetrationf events n time. Hence, the moral

is

not

comical so

long as

it

is

in

this

sense

delicate.

But

it

will

become

so

whenever

that

abruptness

appears

in

it.

But

does

not

the

moral

very

often

bear

this

character?

Is

this

character not

often a

necessary

condition

of its

remaining

true

to

itself

and

to

the

moral law?

In all

its conformity o law, however passive that may ap-

pear,-even if

it

be

unalterable

habit,-does

there

not

lie

hidden a

certain

potential

violence,

the

power

to

mutilate

the

perhaps

fair

proportions

of

its

own

indi-

vidual

life or

bend

circumstances

towards a

point

to

which

their

own

development

would

never

have

led

them?

We do

not

suggest but

that

if

the moral man

were

great

enough, he could so master all circumstances, ven in a

very

imperfect

world, as

to

lead

them

always

through

fine

gradations

towards

his

moral

ends.

Doubtless

the

ultimate

good

is, as

Plato

thought,

he

consummation

f

grace

and

beauty

as

well

as

of

righteousness.

But,

cer-

tainly,

its

perfect

wholeness

lies

beyond

the

reach

of

anyone

of

us.

The common

man

cannot

complete

its

broken arcs intotheperfectround. And we are all com-

mon

men.

The

most he

can

do,

with his

imperfect nd

fitful

visions

of

the

perfect,

s

to

shape his

life

very

roughly

according to

its

boldest

outlines. To

be

just he

must

often

refuse

to be

kind,howeverwell

he knows

that

there is a

justice

which is

kinder than

his,

and

perhaps

juster

too. To

be

true

he must

often fail to

be

graceful,

even though the highestgrace be also the truest truth.








164

INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL OF

ETHICS.

Nay,

if

any man

were

great

enough

never to

do violence

to

theperfect

orb of

life

in

his own

soul

and

in

theworld

of affairs,would we call him

moral unless he

were

pre-

pared to

lose

good, as

common

men

have to

do, did he

happen to

be

clad in their

common

garb,-to

stand, if

need

were,

amid all

temptations

and

opportunities, a

solid,

unbending,

highly

absent-minded'

figure,

without

even

the

consolation

of

conscious

greatness, with

no

refuge at all,

except

the

unverified

onviction

of being

strong in being right? We incline to thinkthe answer

negative;

that no man

is

morally

great unless

we

can

say

of

him

that

he would

still

be moral

though

he were

not

great.

And to

say

so is

to identify

all

morality with

the

very

principle

which

Bergson

finds

n

the comic. De-

prive

life of the

libertyto

impose this

mechanical' form

upon

its own

action,

wipe

out from ife

all

that contains

this awkwardness and abruptness,and you cut away all

the

morality

which is

only

strong

and

straight,

with-

out being

refined

r

clever.

And

if

this

be the

principle

whose

expressions

society rejects

and

castigates,

then

society is

committed

o

an

ideal which is

false,

in

the

sense that

it

is

one

which

society

can

only reach

by

squandering the very

values

by which it

subsists.

The pessimism of this does not need to be labored.

To rule out

the

mechanical,

he

rigid,

from

the

life

which

society

wants

is

plainly to withdraw

the

good from out

of

the

reach

of

common

men

and make

it the aristocratic

privilege of a

few.

But

it

is also to

lose

sight

of

what,

definitely,

he

good can be, even for

the few.

It is

to co-

quette with

a

doctrine of moral

relativity. The

good

lifeimpliesno longertheremainingfirm, throughthick

and

thin,""

to

a

fixed

aw,

trustingto the

unseen future

to fill

n

and

soften ts

rude outlines.

It

implies

rather

the

movementof

the

e'lan de

vie,

succeeding

by

its sinu-

osity, worming its

way

betweenthe

obstacles, forever

altering

its

own

course,

and

even

shedding

part

of its

own

being

to

reach

its

ends. The

good

is

simply

the

keeping alert and responsive, the making life a series








ETHICAL

PESSIMISM

IN BERGSON.

165

of delicate adjustments

to varying

circumstances.

The

moral

imperative

n the end is

deprived

of its

absolute

and positive character. It says no longer be 'just,' or

'courageous,'

or 'sincere.' It

does

not even

say 'be

good.' It

only says

'be adaptable.'

The good

life

is

transmuted

nto

a piece of high

art;

or into a game of

skill,

in

which

the winners are

they who

have

the gifts

and have cultivated

the

skill.

When Kant declared

that

the only

thing

n the world or

out of it

whichwas good

without qualificationwas the good will, he courted an-

other

sort of pessimism,-that

of thinking hat

gifts and

graces

went for

nothing, nd that

the labor

of education

and the progress

of institutionsbrought

man

no nearer

heaven.

But he at least

preached

a gospel to

the poor,

and saw with

Christianity

hat

in some sense

the race

could not

be

to the swift nor

the battle

to

the

strong.

If the human aspect of that 'mechanization of life in

which Bergson

finds

the comical

were given

its

value,

it would,we

have admitted,

ring

the comicand

the moral

together

on

the basis

of

a certain

community

f prin-

ciple.

We end, therefore,

with a problem,-with

the

question

of the results

of this

affinity etween things

so

disparate.

And

certainfamiliar

facts

lend

a sinister

look to the conclusion. We are perplexed oftenby this

very

affinity,

y the thinness of

the line

which

separates

the hero we worship

from

the mere

eccentric

at

whom

we only smile,

the noble

charity

whichbelieveth

all

things

from the 'imbecility'

which,so

far

as

one

can

see,

'be-

lieveth all

things

too. And it

is true

that the

two

spheres

border

closely,-that

the scenes

are

many

in

life

where we "know not whetherto laugh or weep."' But

this needs

be no abortive

union of

the

highest

and the

lowest,

unless

you

take

the

crudest

laugh,

the

guffaw

which

points

with

the

finger,

r the smile

of

derision,

as

typical

of

laughter. If,

on

the

other

hand,

a smile

is

not

always

a

disguised

frown,

f

society

may laugh

without

laughing

to scorn,

if

there be

such

a

thing

as

a

smile

whichconveysappreciationand does notmerelyseem to,








166 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF

ETHICS.

then

it

is possible that a scene

which is humorous may

not

only

seem worthy,but be

so, despite its exquisite

imperfections. Nor shall we need to deaden our human

senses to the worth, n order to appreciate the

humor.

And surely these are not extravagant assumptions. If

it were only by shutting ur

minds to the reality of what

is taking place in life, that we could

see the comic in

it,

comic perception would be a

commoner hing than it is.

A

group of savages will laugh

outrageously at a black

brotherdrowning n the sea, if he does it somewhatfun-

nily. And we all know the people

who support a repu-

tation for humor on their ability

to see a funnyside in

everything. There is

a

long

stretch between either

of

these types, and Carlyle's

Deity,

who laughed when he

saw

two of his 'little mannikins'

trying o 'explode' each

other

fightinga duel,-' the little spit-fires

And

is

there a betterway of expressingthe difference han pre-

cisely to say that the one scene

was comical throughex-

clusion of its significant eatures

for lack of sympathy

and fine perception, while the

other became comical by

being taken so wholly

in. The fact remains, of course,

that a

laugh

is

not always thus laden

with

a

discerning

sympathy; and the construction

of it as society's ap-

preciation of a form of good has to face the fact that it

can

be derisive and mocking.

And the question, which

of

these betrays its fundamental

nature, may be diffi-

cult. But there remains this other fact, that no

human

being

can

place another's interests wholly

outside of

his

own.

If

it is as a member of

society that he laughs,

it

is no less as a memberof the

same society that the other

man is laughed at. And so long as all laughter is thus

society's laugh at itself,we

have good reason to

assume

that the

nature of the

highest

humor

is

latent

in it

all.

So

far

as

Bergson's investigation

has

brought

the comic

spirit

into

kinship

with

the

moral on thebasis

of a com-

mon character,then, t was just,-whatever we may say

of

the justice

of

entitling

that character

mechanism.

But he gives to both togethera false place, exactly in








ETHICAL

PESSIMISM

IN

BERGSON.

167

so

far as he

fails

to

regard

this

mechanism"

hich

s

their

principle,

s

a

constituent

f

the ideal

towards

which ociety spires.

This

attempt

to

extrude

fromthe true

movement

of

life

all abruptness,

arshness,

ecklessness

f

environ-

ment

eems

to

take

us

very

far

away

from hat

concep-

tion

by

which

Bergson

has

elsewhere

explained

the

course

of evolution,

the

conception

of

a

vast

and

irresistible

elan

de

vie

crashing

hrough

ll obstacles

towards

ts

goal, shedding venparts of its own beingrather han

be

stopped

n

its

course.

But only

at

first

ight.

The

very

characteristic

f

the

elan

is that

it has

nothing

mechanical

bout

its

movement.

t

is not

meant

to be

parallel

to

the

movement

f

the

runner

who comes

to

grief

by

not

minding

is

path.

Its

character

s to

suc-

ceed,

not

to fail.

And

it

succeeds

by

its

sinuosity,

ts

variability,ts graduated hanges. The reasonit must

sacrifice

ts

own

being

during

ts course

s

just

its

in-

ability

o

admit

mechanism

r

space

or,

generally,

ega-

tion,

nto tself.

That

is

why

the

stream

of

life

bifur-

cates

into

narrower

nd

narrower

hannels

which

pro-

gressively

ecome

ost

to

each

other.

If the gaps

which

the

ntellect

ees

could

have

made

part

of

the

reality

f

life, f the abruptness f mechanical ransitionsould

have

been

taken

up

by

it

into

tself

and

made

part

of

itself,

in

a

word,

if it could

have accommodated

nega-

tion

within

ts

own being,

hen

the

sacrifice

would

still

be

made.

But

it would

not be

final.

Life would

still

have

to submit

o the

necessity

f differentiating

tself

if

itwere

ever

to

reach

the

human

evel.

A

man

would

notbe an animal,nor an animal a plant. But lifewould

not

have

lost

itself

nthe

process.

In man

t

could

still

preserve

he

essentials

f its

whole

nature.

As

his

un-

derstanding

t could

embrace

helower

forms

nd

con-

serve

their

value.

But

within

he

being

of reality,

n

Bergson's

construction,

here

s

no room

for

negation.

And so

the

sacrifice

s

final.

GLASGOW

UNIVERSITY.

J.

W.

SCOTT.

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